New etiquette for modern life

[user1485342611]

The world has changed so much in recent times that maybe we should come up with new rules for how not to piss off your fellow citizens.

Rule one

If you are in a cinema or a theatre or at a church ceremony switch off your phone. Just - switch - it- off- and-leave-it-off-until-it-is-time-to-go.

Feel free to add rule 2.

When you get on the bus have your purse/money out of your bag ready! Don't get on and spend 5 mins rummaging!

On public transport, wait for people to exit before you get on. Don't stand blithely in front of the doors, preventing people from getting off, in your eagerness to score a window seat.

If you're doing any of the following, get your nose out of your phone and pay attention:
Walking down a busy street or up/down busy stairs
Getting on or off a train or bus
Getting on or off escalators
Going through ticket barriers
While driving (ffs)

Can I elaborate on the 'people trump phones' theme. If you meet up with a friend, non urgent messages/phonecalls can take place afterwards. And speaking on the phone will interacting with staff in the service sector is really rude!

While interacting.

accept that language moves in different ways and that people don't say Good morrow, mein Liege anymore so a quick hi can be fine (but that said, 'are you alright?' is not the same as 'can I help you")

Fence stuck up my arse - sorry

If you know someone who has recently got engaged, had a baby or other significant life event news, breaking the news on their Facebook wall e.g writing 'congratulations on the arrival of your DD / DS' before the couple themselves have even had a chance to make the news public, is very poor form.

Have a frivolous pub argument once in a while. Do NOT google who sang it and when it came out. Nobody really gives a shit, we want to reminisce, not learn.

Your wedding is a very special day in your life. But please recognise that your friends and relatives also have lives of their own and their entire year cannot revolve around your wedding. They may not want to use up a week's annual leave to attend a hen party in Spain. Or use up half their holiday budget to drive 300 miles and fork out for three nights hotel accommodation because you fancy getting married in an old castle in the heart of the country, with a treasure hunt the night before the wedding and a barbecue the day after.

Just be reasonable. A wedding is not 'all about the bride and groom'. If you've invited 150 people to share the occasion, they are entitled to be taken into consideration as well.

If you attempt to FaceTime someone and they decline the call, please don't repeatedly keep trying to call for the next 20 minutes.

Please take 30 seconds to think that they might be driving/talking to someone else/in the cinema/in the bath/ etc etc etc

As a follow up, if the person you are trying to FaceTime is in a different time zone please check their local time before calling. No one wants to chat at 4am.

Do not use Facebook to announce your love to the person who is in the same room as you, before you continue to write a thread full of back and forth comments about how funny/loved up/silly you both are.

YOU LIVE TOGETHER. YOU ARE IN THE SAME ROOM. STOP IT.

Dont use a phone or an iPad at the table. Talk to people instead.

If someone is talking to you, stop starring at your phone nd actually listen to what is being said. FB can wait a few more minutes!

• Don't assume that, because you have a degree, you are a world-leading expert on everything. Don't forcefully state strong positions in areas where you have literally only the tiniest bit of knowledge. And no, it being "your opinion" does not excuse ignorant statements or factual incorrectness or a failure to cross-check on Google.

• In 99% of cases, victimhood on the grounds of identity is not the basis for your personal authority to drown out the views of everyone else. Yes, you have a right to a voice and yes, your identity is important but being a victim is a powerful and addictive drug, that is is easily devalued by petty use. Draw on it only where it matters.

• If you aren't prepared to do something about it, don't fucking moan about it. Yes, we all whinge sometimes, but going on and on and on about something totally fixable while refusing to fix it is seriously annoying.

• Woman up. It's 2017. Most healthy and able-bodied women can do 'men's work' about the house and garden. You do not need your husband's help to lift that thing/use power tools. Equally, do NOT put up with blokes who don't do their fair share of 'women's work' around the house and childcare, leaving you exhausted and unable to cope.

Can I add to original post, turn your phone off at the GP surgery, and Hospital waiting room. Not everyone wants to hear your conversation. I think "modern" times have just made a lot of people incredibly rude.Such a relief to read on these posts that folk have similar thoughts to me regaring noise from i pads, and mobile phone use, because I have been called a dinasaur (and worse) asked if I come from the Victorian age.

I agree with alot of these but why is it rude to call people and leave a voice message?

paxillin yes! Many a heated discussion about who sang what, and when has been ruined by someone getting their phone out and saying "actually it was so-and-so in 1997". It's always the same person as well!

Don't buy a mega bucket of popcorn and crunch and rustle it all through the film that I have paid to watch at the cinema. The sound of you chomping makes me feel ill and yes I am looking at you and thinking you really shouldn't be eating that.

If you go into a sparsley populated cinema do not sit next to or right infront/behind of the only other people in there.

Obviously does not apply for premieres , popular films etc.

'Don't buy a mega bucket of popcorn and crunch and rustle it all through the film that I have paid to watch at the cinema. The sound of you chomping makes me feel ill and yes I am looking at you and thinking you really shouldn't be eating that.'

Then petition the cinemas not to sell it because it offends your delicacy. I'll continue to buy it and I don't 'chomp'. I've yet to encounter 'chomping' I can hear over the sound in a cinema. Couldn't really give a rat's arse about judgemental twats looking at me and thinking my size 12 self shouldn't be eating it, either. If it makes you ill, you should see a doctor or perhaps not go to cinemas since, hey they sell the popcorn and much more.

"If you're stealing someone's meme, have the courtesy to like their meme first. Not liking it before yoinking it is downright poor manners."

Is that a joke?

Don't use your stroller/pushchair as a battering ram to barge your way through the other users of a footpath. Having a child does not make you monarch of the sidewalk.

You know how years ago it was considered important to teach your children table manners and that it was rude to shout or run around a restaurant where other people were enjoying a meal.

Well, that still stands!

If you take your children to a restaurant, don't just plonk them in front of a screen and insist it's the only way you can relax. Interact with them FFS, and teach them how to behave in a restaurant. It will pay dividends very quickly. And yes, I do judge. I don't believe that every set of parents I see is under such terrible pressure they can't even try. Please, at least try to teach your kids to wait before you give them an iPad. At least try for five minutes to teach your kids' patience. Please don't sit down and issue iPads in one move.

And as previous posters have said:
If you do give your little darlings ipads or phones to amuse them, for the love of fuck also give them headphones or turn the sodding volume off.

If you are waiting in a long queue in a public place, please do give your toddler and screen and headphones. That's the time and the place.

If you enter a cafe and there is a long queue and only a few empty tables DO NOT bag it. If no one did this by the time you get served there'd be an empty table, instead of loads of people sitting without food whilst people who have been served can't sit down. Grrrrrr I'm angry just thinking about it!